Saturday, March 25, 2017

RinoCare: Better News for People Who Like Bad News

Ryancare, which I talked about here in RinoCare: Good News for People Who Like Bad News failed yesterday. That was indirectly predicted here on the post Appeasement is Futile, by pointing out that Ryan was making a big mistake in opening with the liberal plan, when Democrats aren't going to vote for it anyway and it will risk losing conservative votes. And that is exactly what happened. Conservatives weren't having it and the liberty caucus killed it. Good for them. That's exactly what they should have done.

The failure of RyanCare is the best possible outcome for the Trump team. Of course liberals are calling it a massive defeat but that's okay. Let's list the political downsides for all the routes the healthcare process might have taken.

Nothing proposed. Republicans didn't pursue any healthcare reforms.

Trump supporters furious that their elected officials did not pursue a major campaign promise

Liberals condemn Trump for not carrying through on his own promises

Conservative, free-market healthcare reforms passed.

Liberals condemn Trump for humanitarian crimes against the poor

RyanCare passes.

Republicans now own a national healthcare plan similar to Obamacare

After the inevitable failure of the so-called "free-market solution" socialists will be able to honestly claim the free-market approach doesn't work

Liberals condemn Trump for humanitarian crimes against the poor

Legislation fails

Liberals condemn Trump for not carrying out his own promises

I struck out the condemnation from liberals because it is the same in all cases. Thus even considering their reaction to Republican healthcare measures is an exercise in futility. As you can see, the outcomes with the fewest negative outcomes are if proper conservative healthcare passed or if proposed legislation failed. You might say that there is an additional negative to the latter case, because failed legislation that Trump supported is a failure in itself; it's inherently negative. However in this case the downside is falling more heavily on Trump's opponent. Most Republicans blame Ryan for the failure.

Liberals are gloating that this is an epic fail, but let them. Remember, they were going to condemn Trump no matter the outcome, so it doesn't matter. This is the best case scenario. I hope Obamacare drags on for a few years and fails on its own. Trump has not failed his campaign promise. If worst comes to worse he can just do nothing during the remaining 7 years 300 days of his presidency and watch the thing collapse on itself.

Update: Scott Adams has an interesting take on it: Trump has been promoted from Hitler to incompetent along the arc of his story to national hero.